Your voice for the festival

Noises Off is a place for you to write reviews, share your thoughts, make some jokes and join in the discussion. You can submit articles by email to [email protected], or – even better – come and visit the NOFFice in the Union bar at any time of the day and discuss ideas with the team. Follow and tweet us @noffmag.

So it's that time when we reflect on the week, give thanks and hand out awards. Reflecting and thanking are easy – we've seen shows that have been political, funny, inspiring, shocking and thought-provoking, and all done with the kind of energy and commitment that make us embittered journos feel thankful for the present and hopeful for the future.

To Avoid Controversy, The NSDF Awards Are To Be Settled By Playing Arcade Games

After decades of tiresome grumbling from shows cruelly denied their share of Award Ceremony glory, NSDF has made the decision to abolish the judging process altogether in favour of a day-long battle in Scarborough's finest gaming halls.

On telling people that no, I am not with a show, no, I am not part of the company, and no, I don’t even go to a university associated with one of the shows, I receive a general response of “Well done!” and “Wow, that’s brave!”. To combat the potential loneliness that would have isolated me to the realms of my B&B, with nothing to do but write for Noises Off all week, I made the conscious decision to mingle.

I had been looking forward to Cock ever since the festival productions were announced. Encouraged to read something by Mike Bartlett, I was drawn to it at Foyles bookshop in London about six months ago and got to reading straight away. In a way, the play is hardly original by using exploration of sexuality as a key theme. However, I believe Bartlett gives one of the most honest depictions of the confusions of sexuality ever seen on stage.

Have you ever been told a story that has a really good moral and intention behind it, but the way the story was told to you just didn't hook you in the slightest? The kind of story that opens up very interesting questions and conversations, but only once you've slogged through the stodge to get there. That's how I felt after watching Dahmer.

Festival Director Michael Brazier Speaks Out On New Career As Hat Model

Festival director Michael Brazier is to resign in order to pursue a career as a hat model. Brazier, who has been director since 2012, handed in his letter of resignation after last night's Quiz, during which he modelled a series of hats.

I adored this show...perhaps I should elaborate on that opinion to hit my word limit, but I honestly don’t feel I will be able to express how much I loved this musical in a few hundred words, so I might as well be brief.

This is the question that’s been whispered round the in-the-round theatre as soon as the lights come up on Daniel. I sat down with the cast and crew to unpeel the layers of truth beneath this provocative piece of new writing about the impact of child pornography.

When I read about The Toyland Murders in the NSDF programme, my heart did a tiny little jump for joy. Over the past few years, I have developed a fondness for puppet theatre, so my hopes for Nottingham New Theatre’s pint-sized, film noir style offering were high.

What's your plan after graduating? University careers officers, parents and friends might all be doing their best to persuade you that if you don't have a solid gold graduate job offer then you'll end up hawking dented tins of catfood from a tartan wheelie shopper within a decade. You don't need to listen to them.

When I first came along to the NSDF I was told that a key highlight was the vibrant discussions which would dissect the theatrical productions and consider the merits and area of weakness of each piece allowing true reflection for all involved.

Envy sits in the corner, tearing the label off its beer. It’s a feeling that lives at the backs of workshops, at the corners of the bar. And I have been envious this week. Worse, at times I’ve been actively very jealous.

So far my festival has been occupied by police brutality, sexual identity crisis and child abuse. All of which I very much enjoyed, but these productions (I hope it was clear I was talking about shows there) were not exactly easy to watch at times. I was therefore thoroughly looking forward to switching my brain off, sitting back and enjoying some light-hearted uncomplicated theatre. And after whetting my appetite with an impressive rendition of their opening number at the welcoming ceremony, I hoped the production of The Addams Family from Durham Light Opera Group could provide me with this.

The Durham Light Opera Group described their production of The Addams Family as "a wacky musical comedy… [with] plenty of dark humour". I am pleased to say that they didn’t disappoint. The musical presents the characters we all know and… love (!?), and tells the story of Wednesday Addams (Jennifer Bullock) falling in love with a normal boy, Lucas (Joe McWilliam). With the parents of these two lovebirds set to meet for dinner, hilarity and disaster will surely result.

Hollywood director David Fincher is to direct the movie adaptation of Nottingham New Theatre's The Toyland Murders. Mr Fincher, whose works include Seven and Fight Club, saw the play incognito yesterday and was instantly struck by the play's criminal and violent themes.

Jeffrey Dahmer was a monster by anyone's standards. He killed 17 boys and men between 1978 and 1991 – and even ate parts of their flesh. Amie Petriccia-Lear's play tells his story. So we took her and director Thomas Newall to the scariest place in Scarborough to find out more: horror experience Terror Tower.

I had no idea what I was in for before I saw Daniel, the debut piece of new writing from Footprint Theatre. After speaking to several people before seeing the show it was clear that it had divided opinion: some hated it, others were unsure, while many loved it. Regardless of views, there was one reoccurring trend among those I spoke to: they could not stop talking about it. And after experiencing it I can see why.

The Addams Family are one big contradiction. They're a loving, sharing, giving family, who also make regular attempts to murder anything or anyone that crosses their path. This musical ramps up the irony at the family's heart by making romance the show's lifeblood.

There is nothing quite like hearing that one of your less popular opinions is now held by someone else as well. This is made all the more satisfying given that the opinion in question is regarding that little chestnut, the highly divisive Cock that everyone seems so desperate to crack.

There are many things I would like to say to you all, but I feel it is appropriate first to thank you. Those of you who I have already spoken to have treated me with such kindness and showed genuine concern and thoughtfulness towards my position.

Many of us who say we want a career in theatre are often asked what we’ll actually do, how we’re actually useful, if our degree is actually real. We are asked, essentially, to justify our skillset and our interests. At the end of yesterday’s discussion we had something that in five minutes not only justified but also added value to everything that we do.

Bite into Alan Ayckbourn (not literally, we're strictly respectful here) and you'd find him patterned through with Scarborough like a stick of John Bull's rock (and it's much better than Blackpool's rival offering, if you're asking). His 60-year, 80-play career would be formidable if it weren't for the sweetness of his work, cut through with enough acidity to sting but not enough to deter the flocking holiday crowds.

The fall of the Berlin Wall infamously caused historian Francis Fukuyama to suggest that it marked “the end of history”. Given world events since, it's easy to scoff at the idea. But at the time, it would've been easier to see where Fukuyama was coming from.

I try to imagine being told that someone I know is a paedophile. I try to imagine whether I’d be able to stop thinking about it, whether I wouldn’t want to talk about it, or whether I’d be the one carefully probing for gossip.

Footprint Theatre’s Daniel is a thought-provoking, if brief, verbatim and devised piece which asks its audience to scrutinise their beliefs and emotional responses to the troubling stories with which we are presented in daily life. I was happy to comply. Even 24 hours after seeing Daniel, I am still unsure as to where I stand on the sentence of the 18-year-old convicted for possessing indecent images of children.

There was a moment in Sunday's discussion on looking after ourselves and each other when a question was asked about using people's personal stories when making theatre. Luke Barnes answered by saying that the person you're writing about should be at the centre of the process, and it's not about the writer's vision. This was met with general consent, but I wonder how universally applicable this rule is when making theatre, especially after seeing The Beanfield and Daniel.

They cum at the same time, they share bedtime story duty and they share swanky suits. Mark Ravenhill’s political drama Over There focuses on a pair of identical twin brothers reunited after the fall of the Berlin Wall, but director Josie Davies has chosen to cast gender-blind with Bryony Davies and Samuel Wightman playing the twins.

“Stories about toys are normally like Noddy, very saccharine and sugary. The worst thing will happen is that maybe someone will get pushed over and they all go on a picnic. But what if something really bad happened?” Director and writer Ben Holland's first venture into making a play using puppets was inspired by this question, along with Disney, Pixar and loads of YouTube tutorials. Primary coloured toys act out a stylish and 1930s film noir, following a female detective's quest to hunt down a cold-blooded killer who's menacing Toyland.

We caught up with the button-eyed cast of Toyland Murders to find out what they've made of the NSDF so far – and who they'd like to murder.

I just love puppets. I think it’s fascinating how glued-together pieces of felt can be brought to life to the point where I actually feel for them. There was a brilliant moment when Harvey B. Feltz (James Roscow) entered with his hands tied together, and I felt genuinely upset. A build-up of life through these inanimate creatures led me to this point, in a show that was superb in writing, direction and execution of performances.

NSDF’s post-lunch discussions are one of the most communal parts of the festival, led daily by the ever fair, ever so slightly scary Chris Thorpe. The subject of the first discussion, "how to look after ourselves and others", feels timely as the production, management and technical teams are working flat out.

Who are the hardest working people at the NSDF? The Tech Crew, “Nippy” cabs and dauntless Sarah from the Management Team have all got a look-in for this most sought-after of accolades. But most impressive of all are the cast and crew of Move, who are mounting an astonishing 24 performances throughout this year's NSDF.

Footprint Theatre’s production of Daniel is a bold new play with a dark theme. The four actors bravely and deftly tackled the issue of whether it's sexual preferences, or merely thoughts, that define who we are as human beings.

Upon arrival at NSDF (in its 60th year no less) a friend of mine observed that the twisting corridors and the long winding stairs of the SJT were like a maze or, to coin the phrase she used, a "labyrinth in peach". I found this description really fucking funny and, to feed this comedic comparison, I decided that this newly named, mildly distressing system of peach, orange and other colours needed an equally mildly distressing monster to dwell within it. This is when I came up with the NSDF monster: P.A.M, otherwise known as the elusive Passive Aggressive Minotaur.

History is a series of vanishing memories. Which is why theatre can be an important cultural preserver, encasing the mosquito of significance in the amber of text, waiting for the scientists of drama to extract it and bioengineer it into performance (That's enough – ed.)

Sometimes I sit in complete darkness and watch a plot unravel in front of me on a topic I know nothing about. Then there’s an interval, and I’m suddenly thrown into the deep end of discussions about the vital political and social context of something I am none-the-wiser to.

As theatre director Peter Brook had it, “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage.” It’s a fine idea. But what does a student drama society do when it’s forced to search harder and harder for the room to exist?

Josie Davies, co-producer of the highly acclaimed Lemons, Lemons, Lemons, Lemons, Lemons at NSDF last year, is returning to the 2016 festival as director of Mark Ravenhill’s political drama Over There with the Warwick University Drama Society. “We built a kind of community at last year’s festival and there was already so much support by the time we went with the show to Edinburgh,” she says, so she’s excited to approach this year with a more directly artistic view.

The National Student Drama Festival started in 1956, and is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. Actor Timothy West was there all those years ago, and we spoke to him about what he remembers and how the acting world has changed.

There are rumours that the National Student Drama Festival is planning a rebrand. Details are unclear at the moment, but it’s understood that there is a feeling among the festival board that the words “National”, “Student”, “Drama” and “Festival” don’t do justice to the kinds of work that are put on every year.

So you made it to NSDF16. Well done. Seriously – if you’re here, it means your show was selected, or you were, or you made it on to the tech team, or you volunteered for the management team, or you paid for a ticket and came of your own volition, any one of which required time, hard work and money.

I love the idea of seeing the awkwardness of daily interactions with strangers. In Departures I loved the ticket office attendant’s final rant about everything that is shit about life. I loved that the man in the suit wanted to learn to play the oboe. I loved that the first five minutes are wonderfully subtle with the nuances of everyday embarrassments, encounters and tiny gestures.

I wasn't expecting to like Departures. The synopsis put me in mind of long afternoons of endless drama improvisations and I'd heard rumours that it was almost entirely sung through, neither of which thrilled me.

Getting a show to the NSDF is already a pretty sweet achievement: albeit one that requires tons of hard work and fundraising to enjoy. But the cherry on the top is winning a prize at the festival awards. We've interviewed Robert Hewison to get the inside story on how the judging system works – and on a few times where it's been inches from chaos.